Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He played for the New York Yankees in their years of glory. From the time Mantle began to play professionally in 1951 to his last year in 1968, baseball was the most popular game in the United States. For many people, Mantle symbolized the hope, prosperity, and confidence of America at that time.

   Mantle was a fast and powerful player, a “switch-hitter” who could bat both right-handed and lefthanded. He won game after game, one World Series championship after another, for his team. He was a wonderful athlete, but this alone cannot explain America’s fascination with him.

   Perhaps it was because he was a handsome, red-haired country boy, the son of a poor miner from Oklahoma. His career, from the lead mines of the West to the heights of success and fame, was a fairy-tale version of the American dream. Or perhaps it was because America always loves a “natural”: a person who wins without seeming to try, whose talent appears to come from an inner grace. That was Mickey Mantle.

   But like many celebrities, Mickey Mantle had a private life that was full of problems. He played without complaint despite constant pain from injuries. He lived to fulfill his father’s dreams and drank to forget his father’s early death.

   It was a terrible addiction that finally destroyed his body. It gave him cirrhosis of the liver and accelerated the advance of liver cancer. Even when Mickey Mantle had turned away from his old life and warned young people not to follow his example, the destructive process could not be stopped. Despite a liver transplant operation that had all those who loved and admired him hoping for a recovery, Mickey Mantle died of cancer at the age of 63.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions

What is the main idea of the passage?

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• The topic of this passage is______________.

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• We can see from paragraph 5 that after his father’s death, Mantle ______.

• The first paragraph of the passage implies that insects benefit from the color-coded communication system because __________

• With which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree?

• The word “laundry” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ___________.

• What is the passage mainly about?

• A nod of the head from the teacher will likely ask his student to __________ what he is saying.

• What happened to make Bethan decide to quit Facebook for a while?

• The underlined word “refrains” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ......

• Which of the following can be inferred from the first paragraph?

• The word “gloomy” in the passage is closest in meaning to .............

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• What is the main idea of this passage?

• Which form other than oral speech would be most commonly used among the blind people?